wish for spring flowers

[AgapeBible]

I have rarely been in more northern colder climates, so I miss out on Spring and Fall. I miss out on snow, but I hear snow is dangerous even deadly it comes down heavy and blocks people doors and cars, it blocks the road with ice and makes it dangerous to drive. The snow turns brown and yucky when it melts and mixes with dirt, you get mud. I have heard it rains in spring, the dirt makes things muddy wet and slippery, some flowers grow, but growing flowers is hard, the ones sold in the florist, garden or gardening, housekeeping places like home depot, Lowe's, Ace hardware, they cost a lot of money, and sometimes, a lot of times the plants and flowers die.

I see pictures of spring flowers in magazines and books, they are absolutely gorgeous. I want to draw and paint them so I can capture their beauty. Where I live it is too hot and tropical for Easter lilies, tulips, daffodils, iris, lily of the valley, hyacinth, and bluebells,to grow here. It's also too hot for dogwood, azalea,, hydrangea and lilacs to grow here.

Hibiscus grows well. I wish I could get other flowers to bloom beautifully. I guess I will just have to find good pictures to draw from. I use colored pencils, acrylics, and water colors on flower pictures. I really like spring. I like pink blossoming cherry trees. I like lilies and other bulb flowers, tulips, daffodils, iris, hyacinth, lily of the valley, cherry blossoms, bluebells, magnolia, gardenia, water lilies, lilacs.

I love flowers, wish I could get them to grow better in Florida. I think the problem is we need to find the right plants for Florida's hot sunny sub=tropical humid climate.The soil is sandy and not so good. When my Mom and I plant a plant, we use store-bought potting soil, there is black kow, a rich soil, fertilizer, name says it all. We try to remember to water our plants a lot. Sometimes we wait for rain. Sometimes I water the yard when it is dry and then a few hours later it rains. Murphy's law.

 

[godisagardener]

Where I live in north Texas, gardening is a hit and miss hobby. It totally depends on what summer decides to do. My flower plots can look luscious at this time of year, if we get a little rain, but usually by the end of June it becomes a struggle just to get most of the plants through until late fall comes. It's either no rain all summer, or intolerable heat all summer, or both. Plants don't do well when it's consistently 100+ degrees for days on end and drought conditions set in with water restrictions. But every so often we get an out of the ordinary summer. Maybe that will happen this year.

Over the years I've found that sticking to a few varieties is best. Iris do wonderfully. I've got a few purple bearded iris blooming. Dutch iris do well, they've begun to bloom. Turks Cap does vey well, as do Mexican Hat flower and daylilies. Purple sage bushes do well. I'd love to have some exotic plants but that will never happen! Sometimes my daffodils bloom, other times we get a late cold snap and the buds freeze or the buds don't set. They try to come up in February and that's way too early here. I've been potting some pieces that drop from a stick cactus and plan to plant them here and there.

I think we all see the plants others have and wish they'd grow where we live!

You're right in that plants are costly at the big box stores. I check Walmart's garden section each time I go in. They usually mark down plants quite a bit as they get old or go out of season and stick them in a corner away from the others. We stopped by Lowe's yesterday, I thought I might find some plants while there, but the prices were atrocious. Plus they didn't have the round garden stones we were looking for. We do have a local garden center that has plants at a more reasonable price and has sales often. I try to find native plants if possible.

Maybe you can draw my iris.